Day: October 31, 2006

In a stunning reversal timed for maximum impact, Republican Senate Candidate Michael Steele, in a trick fit for Halloween, announced the endorsements of all Five sitting Black Democratic County Councilmembers in affluent Prince Georges County. To add insult to injury, he also announced the endorsement of former Prince Georges County Executive Wayne Curry, the first African American County Executive in Maryland.

This has clearly been in the making for some time and is indicative of some kind of Karl Rove plot or CIA mind control. That is the only thing that makes sense. That, or either there is something in the water in Prince Georges County that makes reasonable black people go weak in the knees and fall head over heels for Dubya’s Pet Negro.

Do these turncoat Nigra’s really believe, as Wayne Curry said, ” The person to elect, who is most responsive to the things that will make our future brighter is Michael Steele…he is a good man with a good plan.”

Plan. What Plan? Does it come from the same party that “Planned” Iraq and Katrina. Does this coalition of the confused coloreds really believe that electing a Bush rubber stamp is a solution to Kweisi Mfume not winning the Democratic primary as he should have?

They were so concerned about Mfume that not a single soul gave him a contribution large enough to report on his campaign disclosure report. None of these confused coloreds got their hands dirty to help Mfume. None did any heavy lifting; By what right are they using the nothin’ they did for Kweisi to justify betraying the entire black community by endorsing one of Dubya’s dupes?

If Dubya’s Pet Negro had these endorsements in the pipeline, why treat Black America to the spectacle of being endorsed by a Killer and a Thug and crackheads before that?

Like this:

The Congressional Black Caucus, according to the CBC monitor, has transformed into the “Corporate Black Caucus” , due in large part to the nefarious tentacles of the “racist and rightwing Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). The DLC was created after the Reagan years to move the Democratic Party more to the right and to do this they have unleashed the corporate hounds to payoff Black faces to perform for them what whites cannot. ”

Former NAACP President and former Congressman Kwesi Mfume ran for the U.S. Senate this year as did a younger, brasher contemporary, Harold Whore, Jr. Who do y’all think the CBC showed more love to, the one who used to lead them as Chairman, or the Corporate Whore?

You guessed it, the Whore. Most members of the CBC vote differently than Ford on the vast range of issues, yet they still support the Charlatan in their midst. CBC members gave $36,268 to Harold Whore, Jr. Barack Obama and Charlie Rangel gave nearly $19,000 alone.

Hall of Shame

If they were trying to treat both men equally, which Ford doesn’t deserve, the following contributors would have given to both him and Mfume. The following gave only to Ford: Dianne Watson, Kendrick Meek, Gregory Meeks, Sanford Bishop, Emmanuel Cleaver, Alcee Hastings, Barbara Lee, Barack Obama, Charlie Rangel and former Congressman Bill Clay whose successor, his son, told the Hill newspaper that he and his father would both support Mfume, but neither came through with enough money to show up on a disclosure report.

There are 43 members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Barack Obama in the Senate and 42 members in the House. Nine members of the CBC gave contributions to Kweisi Mfume. Yes, that’s right, I said Nine. Of the $1.3 million raised by Mfume, $16,500 came from Black members of congress. That’s about 1%.

Mfume’s heroes

Mfume’s contributors represent a heroes and sheroes roster: Elijah Cummings, Carolyn Kilpatrick, Juanita Millender-McDonald, Chaka Fattah, Danny Davis, Corrine Brown, Mel Watt, Don Payne and Bobby Scott. I find this list fascinating because it says so much about us as a people.

Prominent black and white celebrities stepped up. The white creator of Good Times and the Jeffersons, Norman Lear, gave $2,100, Black Billionaire Bob Johnson and Debra Lee, the corporate chieftains of BET, gave over $17,000 between the two of them, more than the entire CBC. Black Publishing executives, Susan Taylor of Essence, Linda Johnson Rice of Ebony and Jet, and Earl Graves, Sr of Black Enterprise gave $19,300 between them. Friend of Bill Clinton, Atty Vernon Jordan and Michael Jordan’s wife Juanita gave as well.

Mfume came within 3.2% of winning that primary against five white opponents who raised nearly $12.5 million against him. He was outspent by nearly 12 to 1 and almost won.

The Washington beltway crowd and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee led the charge against Mfume. Mfume’s two leading white opponents Ben Cardin and Josh Rales spent over $11 million to defeat him. Rales spent millions of his own money. Cardin raised over $373,000 from Members of Congress alone, including two Uncle Tom’s in the CBC, Alcee Hastings and Kendrick Meek. A single white Senator, Blanche Lambert Lincoln, gave Mfume a contribution so it wouldn’t look so obvious that Senate Democrats were attempting to prevent a qualified and respected former Black Congressman from being elected. The white power structure conspired through negative press coverage and aggressive arm twisting of potential donors to damage Mfume’s candidacy. With all of that going for him, Cardin barely won the primary.

Jesse Jackson, Sr, whose son also sits in the Congressional Black Caucus gave so little to Mfume that it didn’t show up on a disclosure report, or gave him nothing at all. I find that astounding. I have always had great respect for Jesse. It wasn’t too long ago that Mfume and Jackson were leading marches together. He found time for Ned Lamont, a white Connecticut Millionaire running against Senator Joe Lieberman. So did Maxine Watersand Al Sharpton. Lamont is not going to ultimately defeat Lieberman, so these people wasted their time and effort on a white candidate that cannot win and didn’t help a black candidate that could.

It makes no sense that Kweisi Mfume was struggling for cash while Harold Whore, Jr is buoyed by a river of special interest cash $7.3 millon dollars greater. Similarly, I hope Barack Obama doesn’t think these Negroes are gonna help him get elected President. Left to their own devices, they will do for him what they did for Mfume: next to nothing.

Our Black leadership is hopelessly fractured and leading in opposite directions that usually lead to the same right-wing corporate cul de sac. They can’t even support each other based on general principle, is it any wonder that they don’t support or represent us?

Where in God’s name is the vision? The distorted and confused amalgamation of leaders and positions is disheartening. We are marinating in the aftermath of two Presidential Elections in which significant questions of black and brown voter suppression exist and these Black politicians can’t even get it together enough to fight that and support each other at the same time for election to the Senate, where the community has never had adequate representation.

Manning Marable teaches us that, ” Oppressed people learn strategies for survival: if they do not learn, they perish.” If these highly educated people cannot navigate these shallow waters, how can they fight poverty, unemployment, HIV/AIDS, Globalization and the rest of the ailments to the black diaspora?